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ON HEARING OF LOVE

On hearing of overpowering love
tremble and be moved like an aesthete.
But, content, recall what your imagination
fashioned for you; this first;
and then the rest - lesser things -
that in your life you experienced and enjoyed,
things more real and tangible.
- Of such loves you were not deprived.

DAYS OF 1896

He was utterly disgraced.
A sexual inclination of his strictly forbidden and scorned
(innate nonetheless) was the reason:
society was exceedingly prudish.
He gradually lost what little money he had;
then his standing, and his good name.
He was nearly thirty without ever a whole year spent in work
at least not work anyone knew.
Sometimes he earned his living from mediations
that were deemed shameful.
He ended up the type with whom if seen too often,
no doubt you’d be seriously compromised.
But this isn’t everything. It wouldn’t be fair.
The memory of his beautyis deserving of much more.
For there’s another side and if seen from this
he appears an amiable sort;
he appears a simple and genuine child of love,
who above honor and good name
unquestioningly placed the pure pleasure of his pure flesh.
Above his good name?
For society which was exceedingly prudish
made foolish connections.

CRAFTSMAN OF CRATERS

I sit and muse. Desires and senses
In this crater of pure silver
- made for the household of Heracleides,
in which good taste prevails in abundance -
note the elegant flowers, and streams,
and thyme, and at the centre I have set a fair youth,
naked, seductive; one of his legs still in the water.
- I begged you, o memory,
to be my prized assistant that I might fashion
just as it was the face of the youth I loved.
The task proved considerable
for some fifteen years have passed
since the day he fell, a soldier,
in the defeat at Magnesia.

SEPTEMBER 1903

Let me at least fill myself with delusion now;
that I might not feel my life empty.
So many times I was so close.
Yet how paralyzed, how fainthearted I was;
why was it I remained with lips sealed;
my empty life weeping within me,
and my desires dressing themselves in black.
So many times to be so close to those eyes,
to those sensuous lips, to that perfect, beloved body.
So many times to be so close.

IN A TOWN OF OSROINI

Wounded in a tavern brawl
our friend Remon was brought to us
last night around midnight.
Through the window that we left wide open,
the moon lit his handsome body on the bed.
We’re a mixture here;
Syrians, Greeks, Armenians, Medes.
Such is Remon too.
But yesterday when the moon lit his sensuous face,
our thoughts went to Plato’s Charmides.

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